Does the US have the resources to intervene at all?
Easily. Air superiority could prevent the government from using its own air power, and strategic strikes could cripple its command and control capabilities. No ground forces would be needed.
Does the US have the resources to intervene at all?
Easily. Air superiority could prevent the government from using its own air power, and strategic strikes could cripple its command and control capabilities. No ground forces would be needed.
Who pays for this? No really. States are going bankrupt. Can the US even afford surgical strikes? Even then, can surgical strikes be done with no further involvement, i.e. can we just fly there, bomb, and then not need to think about Libya again for another ten years? It's not going to work that way. If we commit, we're going to be there for awhile, and these Middle Eastern problems are never solved quickly, cleanly, or well.
I love how everything is "easy" with you guys. With all due respect, "easily" is not always the answer, and it's not the answer here. Do you really want the US involved in another Middle Eastern debacle? Because that's what you're advocating. Have you even been reading the same news that I have? There's no central command and control to simply go in and bomb. The battles raging in the cities, led by Gadhafi's militias, could only be stopped by ground forces.
What you're talking about really is establishing a no-fly zone over Libya. Remember Iraq? US policy of maintaining a no-fly zone over Iraq did little or nothing over the course of a decade to change the power structure there.
It's academic, anyway. The US needs NATO on board to intervene.
But Russian NATO Ambassador Dmitry Rogozin has made his country's opposition to the proposal clear, and Russia's approval is needed if NATO forces are to be used because use of NATO forces requires approval from the UN Security Council, where Russia has veto power.
"If someone in Washington is seeking a blitzkrieg in Libya, it is a serious mistake because any use of military force outside the NATO responsibility zone will be considered a violation of international law," Rogozin told Russia's Interfax news agency in Brussels.
"Colonel Rym, we have a regiment of light cavalry and we're isolated from supply and reinforcement. Our scouts say that, just over that bluff, every Indian in the world is waiting for us. It looks like it's going to be a massacre. Do you think we'll survive this?"
Also, bear in mind that even if you're talking about taking out planes, an AIM-120D AMRAAM (the standard Air-to-Air Missile in the USAF) costs just about one million dollars per missile.
I'd rather get kids in inner-city Chicago to college than shoot taxpayer dollars at Libyan aircraft.
I'm with Joe on this one. Do we have a moral obligation to sacrifice our social health to "liberate" another rogue nation? Our defense budget is out of control. The money to run our constant interventions is running up the debt, but it's also coming from the paychecks of Wisconsin and Ohio teachers, police officers, and firefighters. If the need for such military campaigns is self-evident, let's allow one of the other prominent Western nations lead the charge.
Here's the thing. It's possible to move the military around without incurring any cost. People talk about the cost of things, such as a million dollar missile. Well, we already bought the missile. That million dollars is already gone to the weapons manufacturer. Using the missile doesn't cost any more. It's not like we can get the million back by not firing the missile.
The problem is that as soon as we use it, you know the military is going to buy replacements, so they can reload. If we use the military that we've already purchased, and are able to control ourselves and not reload it, then the potential to reduce costs is very high. The thing is, we never ever do that.
Also, as much as you want the government, that is very much in debt, to stop spending, you also want the economy to improve and to create jobs. Well, giving piles of money to government military contracts sure makes a ton of jobs.
If the US does chose to intervene, there is a way that they could do it, and come out looking like champions instead of world-class dickheads - by protecting non-combatants allied with the rebels. Dig in, keep those who are not fighting safe, render assistance by having parts of Gaddy's army smash itself against the wall of steel that they throw up, look like heroes to the rest of the world, NATO won't hassle them for protecting non-combatants, as harming non-combatants is a serious war crime, and all they do is seek to prevent it, and of course, whoever ends up in power in Lybia will be particularly favorably disposed towards the US.
Of course, it's a little more in depth, but then again, does it look like I have stars on my shoulders?
Physical stockpile is not a huge problem. The larger issues are upkeep of ships, jet fuel, paychecks for soldiers, insurance, meals, Pentagon intelligence reports, transportation, oil changes for Jeeps, triage experts, electricity for forward bases -- all continuing costs that run in the many billions of dollars.
Also, if running up the deficit by $4 trillion on two wars is good for the economy, then spending another $8 trillion must be twice as good for the economy! Right? Hell yeah!
Physical stockpile is not a huge problem. The larger issues are upkeep of ships, jet fuel, paychecks for soldiers, insurance, meals, Pentagon intelligence reports, transportation, oil changes for Jeeps, triage experts, electricity for forward bases -- all continuing costs that run in the many billions of dollars.
Almost all of those things you listed are things we are paying for whether or not there is war or peace. Jeeps get oil changes no matter what. Soldiers get food and insurance no matter what. Decks get swabbed no matter what. Jets get fueled no matter what. We're paying a ton of money to maintain this military machine, and not really using it so much.
Think of it like this. You buy a computer for $1000. Actually using the computer does cost more money. You have to pay for electricity and Internets. Even so, the cost of that is insignificant compared to the cost to buy the computer in the first place. Our military is basically a mega-ultra-powerful supercomputer that has most of its CPUs just idling. If I had my way, I'd sell that supercomputer and replace it with just one rack of high quality servers. Then you would save some real moneys.
Almost all of those things you listed are things we are paying for whether or not there is war or peace. Jeeps get oil changes no matter what. Soldiers get food and insurance no matter what. Decks get swabbed no matter what. Jets get fueled no matter what. We're paying a ton of money to maintain this military machine, and not really using it so much.
Well, That's inaccurate in it's broadness - yes, you're still paying for it, war or not, however, you're paying less to change the oil on a Jeep every once in a while, because it's not being used, over paying for regular maintenance to keep it combat ready in a war-zone. You're not paying for fuel a jet doesn't burn, because it's sitting in a hangar waiting to be used, because there's no war on. On top of that, a soldier is paid far less for sitting about with his thumb up his arse on base, instead of receiving Combat pay, Family Separation allowance, Hardship duty pay, etc, etc, whatever else will apply in that soldier's specific situation.
Sure, it's still a shitload of money to maintain a military, but it's still many shitloads cheaper than being at war.
Here's the thing. It's possible to move the military around without incurring any cost. People talk about the cost of things, such as a million dollar missile. Well, we already bought the missile. That million dollars is already gone to the weapons manufacturer. Using the missile doesn't cost any more. It's not like we can get the million back by not firing the missile.
This is not Risk: Online. Just because you haven't seen a pop-up telling you that we still owe money on that missile doesn't mean that it has been paid in full, especially these days. We probably still owe China for about half of the cost of that missile. Fire it, and the taxpayers are paying on a loan for something that doesn't exist any longer. But besides that, Churba has pointed out many other costs you conveniently ignore. BTW, what's our nearest air base in the region? Can planes fly to Libya from that base, or do we need to send a carrier group to the Med? Don't tell me you don't think that would cost anything.
As always, you have to keep in mind that one-time strikes in this region are not that common, especially now that, if we strike, we're essentially choosing sides in a civil war. If we do anything, we're much more liable to get bogged down in a quagmire like we already are in two other expensive places. Does the term "tar baby" mean anything to you? B'rer Fox thought it would be just as easy to defeat the tar baby as Rym thinks it would be to intervene in Libya.
Here's what I really think we should do. Let's just assassinate Gadhafi. Why drop bombs and get involved in wars and quagmires with tons of death and war? Just kill, or even capture, the one crazy dude at the top. We can snipe him from a long way away. We can send in the badass commandos to get him, just like the video games. Maybe poison him so he has to go to a hospital, where we are waiting to snatch him up. It can't be that hard. Dude was on video recently driving around in a golf cart.
I didn't say we should or will. I said we have the military resources to do so. It would be easy to provide material assistance militarily at little immediate risk to US forces.
I didn't say it would be cheap. I didn't say it would be without cost. I didn't say it would be maintainable. All I said was that it would be easy to intervene on an immediate level.
Here's what I really think we should do. Let's just assassinate Gadhafi. Why drop bombs and get involved in wars and quagmires with tons of death and war? Just kill, or even capture, the one crazy dude at the top. We can snipe him from a long way away. We can send in the badass commandos to get him, just like the video games. Maybe poison him so he has to go to a hospital, where we are waiting to snatch him up. It can't be that hard. Dude was on video recently driving around in a golf cart.
Yes, because MURDERING foreign heads of state is not frowned upon by the outside world. Sure, everyone hates Gaddafi right now, but even demonstrating the willingness to directly attack a foreign head of state will have everybody else thinking: "what if I'm next?" And don't tell me that it's obvious that we won't if they aren't assholes, people just don't think that way.
Yes, because MURDERING foreign heads of state is not frowned upon by the outside world. Sure, everyone hates Gaddafi right now, but even demonstrating the willingness to directly attack a foreign head of state will have everybody else thinking: "what if I'm next?" And don't tell me that it's obvious that we won't if they aren't assholes, people just don't think that way.
So bombing and invading and killing a bunch of innocent civilians is totally cool, but if you want to go after the one guy that might actually make a difference, not ok? Bull shit.
It might be a good idea, but you aren't going to get it past politicians. Still, if you do it so that it is unilaterally ordered by a fall guy with plausible deniability, then it's basically all cool.
Here's what I really think we should do. Let's just assassinate Gadhafi. Why drop bombs and get involved in wars and quagmires with tons of death and war? Just kill, or even capture, the one crazy dude at the top. We can snipe him from a long way away. We can send in the badass commandos to get him, just like the video games.
This is kind of my point for a lot of things you guys espouse. This is not a video game. Video game logic does not work very well here. Aside from the mess it would make with the rest of the world and the problems of international law that we have to deal with in the real world, Executive Order 12333 kind of makes it explicitly against US policy. Once again - IT'S NOT A VIDEO GAME. You want to risk international sanctions against the US? How about a nice oil embargo? Gee, it would be nice if Russia took offense and decided to assassinate some of our people. What if China got into the act and decided not to loan us any more money, or, worse yet, decided to call in some of the loans already out? This isn't going to happen in a vacuum. There would be repercussions you obviously haven't thought through.
as Rym thinks it would be to intervene in Libya.
I didn't say we should or will. I said we have the military resources to do so. It would be easy to provide material assistance militarily at little immediate risk to US forces.
I didn't say it would be cheap. I didn't say it would be without cost. I didn't say it would be maintainable. All I said was that it would be easy to intervene on an immediate level.
See, that's the point. In this case, you MUST factor in maintainability, because, as has been said before, to drop one bomb is to choose sides in a civil war. I know you said that we have the resources, but why do you say that? Some vague idea that we have enough? Some video game style notion that we hit the "reset" button on military resources after GWB left - that we've had little Civ 4 guys steadily rebuilding our military since then? I also know that you said it would be "easy" to intervene, but you must be using some new definition of "easy". Perhaps, if by "easy" you mean "risky, costly, and liable to commit the US to a Vietnam/Iraq/Afghanistan type quagmire from which we won't be able to extract ourselves for possibly a decade", then I guess it might be "easy". You go ahead and hug the tar baby. See how easy it is to work yourself loose.
This is kind of my point for a lot of things you guys espouse. This is not a video game. Video game logic does not work very well here. Aside from the mess it would make with the rest of the world and the problems of international law that we have to deal with in the real world, Executive Order 12333 kind of makes it explicitly against US policy. Once again - IT'S NOT A VIDEO GAME.
Yeah, video games usually make sense. Mass murder AOK! Single murder of a guy who is already mass murdering, not OK. Who the fuck comes up with this shit?
This is kind of my point for a lot of things you guys espouse. This is not a video game. Video game logic does not work very well here. Aside from the mess it would make with the rest of the world and the problems of international law that we have to deal with in the real world, Executive Order 12333 kind of makes it explicitly against US policy. Once again - IT'S NOT A VIDEO GAME.
Yeah, video games usually make sense. Mass murder AOK! Single murder of a guy who is already mass murdering, not OK. Who the fuck comes up with this shit?
The rest of the world not playing video games all the time. Until you can jack your balding head into a USB port, you're kinda going to have to deal with that.
This is kind of my point for a lot of things you guys espouse. This is not a video game. Video game logic does not work very well here. Aside from the mess it would make with the rest of the world and the problems of international law that we have to deal with in the real world, Executive Order 12333 kind of makes it explicitly against US policy. Once again - IT'S NOT A VIDEO GAME.
Yeah, video games usually make sense. Mass murder AOK! Single murder of a guy who is already mass murdering, not OK. Who the fuck comes up with this shit?
People with a vested interest in not being assassinated.
This is kind of my point for a lot of things you guys espouse. This is not a video game. Video game logic does not work very well here. Aside from the mess it would make with the rest of the world and the problems of international law that we have to deal with in the real world, Executive Order 12333 kind of makes it explicitly against US policy. Once again - IT'S NOT A VIDEO GAME.
Yeah, video games usually make sense. Mass murder AOK! Single murder of a guy who is already mass murdering, not OK. Who the fuck comes up with this shit?
People with a vested interest in not being assassinated.
Yeah. Power = the ability to come up with laws and stuff that benefit only you and your bros and screw over anyone else. That's one of the crappy ways the world outside video games works.
People with a vested interest in not being assassinated.
Fine, let them have it their way. Since bombs are ok, but sniper rifles aren't, let's just bomb Ghadafi's house, and noplace else.
Same problem. Are you just trolling now?
Boys, boys. We'll do a Thursday show on this after PAX. Scott can articulate his full opinion on the issue, and I will debate him.
I can't wait to hear it.
Rym: It would be easy! Scott: Yeah, it would be easy! I AM AWESOME!
Yeah. Power = the ability to come up with laws and stuff that benefit only you and your bros and screw over anyone else. That's one of the crappy ways the world outside video games works.
Rym: It would be easy! Scott: Yeah, it would be easy!
End of debate.
Yes, because I have a simplistic opinion on the legitimacy of lethal force on varying scales as a means of diplomacy. Clearly, this will be a ten-second show, and at no point will I disagree with Scott's clearly overwhelmingly superior opinion.
The first definition for assassination according to Wikipedia is "to murder (a usually prominent person) by a sudden and/or secret attack, often for political reasons." If you were to publicly announce "omae wa mo shindeiru", would it still be an assassination?
Comments
I love how everything is "easy" with you guys. With all due respect, "easily" is not always the answer, and it's not the answer here. Do you really want the US involved in another Middle Eastern debacle? Because that's what you're advocating. Have you even been reading the same news that I have? There's no central command and control to simply go in and bomb. The battles raging in the cities, led by Gadhafi's militias, could only be stopped by ground forces.
What you're talking about really is establishing a no-fly zone over Libya. Remember Iraq? US policy of maintaining a no-fly zone over Iraq did little or nothing over the course of a decade to change the power structure there.
It's academic, anyway. The US needs NATO on board to intervene. Source.
Reasons why a no-fly zone over Libya is a bad idea and not an "easy" solution.
More reasons why a no-fly zone over Libya is a bad idea.
Rym's assessment of The Little Big Horn:
"Colonel Rym, we have a regiment of light cavalry and we're isolated from supply and reinforcement. Our scouts say that, just over that bluff, every Indian in the world is waiting for us. It looks like it's going to be a massacre. Do you think we'll survive this?"
"Easily."
I'd rather get kids in inner-city Chicago to college than shoot taxpayer dollars at Libyan aircraft.
The problem is that as soon as we use it, you know the military is going to buy replacements, so they can reload. If we use the military that we've already purchased, and are able to control ourselves and not reload it, then the potential to reduce costs is very high. The thing is, we never ever do that.
Also, as much as you want the government, that is very much in debt, to stop spending, you also want the economy to improve and to create jobs. Well, giving piles of money to government military contracts sure makes a ton of jobs.
Should we do it, though? Hell no.
Of course, it's a little more in depth, but then again, does it look like I have stars on my shoulders?
Physical stockpile is not a huge problem. The larger issues are upkeep of ships, jet fuel, paychecks for soldiers, insurance, meals, Pentagon intelligence reports, transportation, oil changes for Jeeps, triage experts, electricity for forward bases -- all continuing costs that run in the many billions of dollars.
Also, if running up the deficit by $4 trillion on two wars is good for the economy, then spending another $8 trillion must be twice as good for the economy! Right? Hell yeah!
Think of it like this. You buy a computer for $1000. Actually using the computer does cost more money. You have to pay for electricity and Internets. Even so, the cost of that is insignificant compared to the cost to buy the computer in the first place. Our military is basically a mega-ultra-powerful supercomputer that has most of its CPUs just idling. If I had my way, I'd sell that supercomputer and replace it with just one rack of high quality servers. Then you would save some real moneys.
That's why "Easily" =! "Best."
On top of that, a soldier is paid far less for sitting about with his thumb up his arse on base, instead of receiving Combat pay, Family Separation allowance, Hardship duty pay, etc, etc, whatever else will apply in that soldier's specific situation.
Sure, it's still a shitload of money to maintain a military, but it's still many shitloads cheaper than being at war.
As always, you have to keep in mind that one-time strikes in this region are not that common, especially now that, if we strike, we're essentially choosing sides in a civil war. If we do anything, we're much more liable to get bogged down in a quagmire like we already are in two other expensive places. Does the term "tar baby" mean anything to you? B'rer Fox thought it would be just as easy to defeat the tar baby as Rym thinks it would be to intervene in Libya.
I didn't say it would be cheap. I didn't say it would be without cost. I didn't say it would be maintainable. All I said was that it would be easy to intervene on an immediate level.
Still, if you do it so that it is unilaterally ordered by a fall guy with plausible deniability, then it's basically all cool.
Rym: It would be easy!
Scott: Yeah, it would be easy! I AM AWESOME!
End of debate.
If you were to publicly announce "omae wa mo shindeiru", would it still be an assassination?